Digital Nomadism and the Future of HRM: Rethinking Work, Workforce, and Workplace

Éditeurs invités

• Matej Černe, University of Ljubljana
• Marko Orel, Prague University of Economics and Business
• Fabiola Mancinelli, University of Barcelona
• Stefanie Reissner, Durham University
• Brian Harney, Dublin City University

Synthèse

Digital nomadism represents location-independent work performed with geographic mobility, raising significant questions for human resource management regarding how organizations manage workers with fluid employment relationships and changing work locations. This special issue seeks scholarship that examines digital nomadism as both a distinctive research context and a lens for reconsidering fundamental HRM concepts in the context of distributed, fragmented, and fluid work arrangements.

The issue addresses a gap in HRM research by bringing together topics often studied separately—remote work, global mobility, platform work, and transnational employment regulation. Contributors are encouraged to develop theory-driven research that demonstrates implications for HRM phenomena, systems, and practices, moving beyond descriptive accounts of digital nomads as a lifestyle group to examine organizational and institutional dimensions.

Thèmes proposés

• Work design, job demands and resources, autonomy, flexibility, isolation, insecurity, time-zone dispersion, infrastructure variability, and performance
• Leadership, coordination, voice, psychological safety, performance management, and feedback in mobile and distributed work arrangements
• The implications of digitalization, AI, algorithmic management, and digital platforms for where, how, and under what contractual conditions work is performed
• Talent attraction, selection, retention, and employer branding for mobile and location-independent workers
• Careers, employability, career self-management, protean careers, sustainable careers, and boundaryless or globally mobile talent pathways
• Wellbeing, recovery, work-nonwork boundaries, social embeddedness, loneliness, identity, and community among digital nomads and other mobile workers
• Onboarding, socialization, belonging, organizational identification, informal learning, and knowledge sharing when workers are geographically mobile
• Destination ecosystems, coworking spaces, local communities, employers, governments, and intermediaries as actors shaping mobile digital work
• Comparative research on digital nomadism across countries, regions, sectors, occupations, employment forms, and regulatory regimes
• Employment relationships, psychological contracts, commitment, fairness, inclusion, and duty of care in remote, freelance, contractual, hybrid, or employee-based arrangements
• International HRM, global mobility, digital nomad visas, taxation, labor law, social security, cross-border compliance, data protection, and institutional complexity
• HR architecture and governance: balancing flexibility, autonomy, coordination, control, equity, risk management, and organizational support